Giving thanks

Jake's younger brother David came home from his mission last week, so we're here in Texas celebrating Thanksgiving with their family. I definitely miss being with my family, but I have so much to be thankful for. I'm grateful for the family I was born into, the family I married into, and the family that Jake and I created this year together.  We get to fuse our individual experiences and ideas to create our own traditions and memories in the future. So from out here in the Lonestar state, I hope that y'all are having a fabulous thanksgiving!

Long days

After a long day of school and work, this is how I'm winding down.

Homemade mushroom and wild rice soup + toasted sandwich with smoked turkey, pear and havarti.

All Hallows Eve

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but with moving into our new apartment, we weren't able to do much to celebrate this year. But I couldn't let it pass by without doing something festive. Jake & I did go to Gardner Village with my mom and brother:

Dangit, I blinked! And Jake isn't in the picture. This is the only one I got - sorry.
Honestly - I wasn't that impressed. Gardner Village always gets these fantastic reviews, and I just don't really understand what the hype is all about. It was RIDICULOUSLY crowded and everything is enormously overpriced. Annoying. But the weather was nice and we had a lovely afternoon together.

A few days before Halloween I planned a date night for Jake & I. Now you must know, I HATE haunted houses and anything scary, really. I love the happy parts about Halloween: decorations, carving pumpkins, corn mazes, trick-or-treating, costumes, etc. Scary movies, haunted forests, etc - I could do without. So Jake was really surprised when I told him we were going to a Hanuted Zip-Line course! It was SO FUN! It was in Provo canyon and they had a course set up with 5 different zip lines. There was one section of the forest that was kind of haunted, but the really scary part of it came from flying through the air, in the mountains, when it's pitch black outside. Seriously fun. My friend Jane and her boy Bryce joined us. After our adventure we went home and watched Audrey Hepburn's "Charade". (Seriously, I don't watch scary movies. period.) All-in-all we had a bewitching great time.


Although our schedules didn't allow for us to go all-out with Halloween this year, we did come up with just about the greatest couples costume ever.
My friends, let me introduce you to Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber. (awesome, I know - right?!)



We had a great time partying with friends. But I really don't know that I ever want to see my husband in leggings and a bra again.

Shame on me

Yoohoo?!.....Anyone still out there? It's been a few months since I said I was back in business. Well, obviously I lied. I promise I had the best of intentions, but life has just been.......life. So much has happened since I last posted and I really wanted to document it all. Then, I got so behind that every time I wanted to blog I felt overwhelmed. I had so much to catch up on that I just gave up. I finally decided to just make an appearance, and catch you up on what I can. I may go back a few months to fill you in, but I figure if there's anyone out there still reading this then they must be good friends and they won't care. So here it goes:

June: We got married. Kind of a big deal. We had a wonderful June wedding that (of course!) was freezing cold and rainy. So many things didn't turn out the way that I had planned it, but the things that matter the most did. So I guess you can say that our day was perfect. Just 3 short days after our wedding we were in Atlanta, Georgia working for Vivint.

July: The whole month I spent pretty lazily enjoying my days of no work, free rent and all the time in the world at my disposal. Living in the south was definitely an experience that I loved. We were only 10 minutes from downtown Atlanta, 20 minutes from my cousin Bryan and his family, and 3 of Jake's brothers were only about and hour south of us. Lots of relaxation for me, work for Jake and family time. Oh, and I did take a trip to Chicago and met my family there for the 2011 Costello Syndrome Conference.

August: People are not kidding when they use the term "Hotlanta". Georgia summers are scorching! But we spent a lot of time cooling off in the swimming pool at our apartment and boating with my cousin and his family at Lake Allatoona. Our summer had to come to and end at some point though. I had to be back in SLC to start school, and Jake took a 6 week extension office in East Texas. So the last weekend in August we parted ways for a bit.

September: The month of September brought a return of my single life-or so it felt. Because Jake was going to be gone, I moved into a house with some of my single girlfriends. I went back to school full time, and work part time at both of my old jobs. I was able to do some fun trips though. One weekend out to Texas to see Jake and a weekend up to Alaska to visit my dear friend Natalie. Then, Jake was able to come home early so after being apart for 5 weeks, I was able to fly out to meet him and make the 24-hour drive to come home together.

October: We took a weekend trip to the eastern shore of Maryland so that Jake could meet all of my family out there (mom's side). Jake moved into my little room with me while we tried to find an apartment. Thank goodness, my 4 sweet roommates were understanding and let us both stay there for the month. Jake went back to work with Delta and I continued my crazy work/school schedule. The first week of the month, Jake was hit by a Buick that ran a red light. Gratefully, Jake was fine but my beloved "Green Goblin" was totaled. We are now a one-car family. We're learning to rely more on each other, patience, and our bicycles. After a whole month of searching, we finally found an apartment and just moved in this past weekend. It is small, but cute and cozy. We now live a block behind the capitol on Capitol Hill and are loving being downtown.

November: Today is the first of the month and things are going well so far. My schedule has been so crazy that I have let my work-out routine fall by the wayside. To get my body kicked back into gear, I'm beginning a no-excuses routine: 30 miles, 30 days. That's just one mile per day. I get so caught up in the thought that I need an hour to go to the gym, and forget that I can do little things every day. So I am committing myself to just take a measly 15 or 20 minutes every single day this month to run just one, simple mile. Wish me luck!

Wow, that was a quick review of the last few months of my life! Photos will follow shortly. (I really promise this time!) I hope all is well with my dear friends and I apologize for my absence.